"Frat-Boy-in-Chief"

I wandered over to "My Girls'" site tonight. Thank God for Tennessee Guerilla Women! What a fabulous group of people. Please consider reading and/or supporting them.

Anywho, I loved TGW's post about our frat boy president. One of the things I loved most was a comment from one King Spriula:

I never believed for a minute W was serious about anything. This is just a cool job for him to have. His handlers used/needed him for his G.O.B. appeal which people like Cheney do not have. That is why nothing interferes with his naps or vacations, and he runs around like he's BMOC at all these meetings with international leaders. He doesn't care about terrorism, healthcare, Katrina victims or the poor. It's all just a fraternity gig where he rewards his "brothers" with tax cuts and appointments. He just wants to be known as a war president cause he thinks it's cool. That is why having to take responsibility, blame or hard questions pisses him off and leads to "it would be easier to be a dictator", "i'm the decider" etc.. He is arrogant, self-centered, and ignorant, a lethal combination of personality traits for a person in his position. You can't appeal to conscience with this man, he doesn't have one.

Wow! That is everything I would like to say about the asshole-in-chief but could never articulate so clearly, succintly or precisely. Very well said, King!

TGW's post leads to a link for the full text of Dowd's fabulous article at Donkey o.d.. I stated to leave a comment there but it got rather long and looked like it wanted to be a post. Since I seem to have navigated away from or closed that comment page, I'm going to have to wing it from here:

I've long thought GW Bush was a cagey and intelligent man surrounded by cagey and intelligent handlers and supporters and that the buffoon show was nothing more than an act and diversionary tactic. I once believed GWB was a wily politician. I'm not so sure anymore.

His antics seem to be increasing in frequency, in direct proprtion to the escalating mess (the only non-expletive I could come up with but far too mild a term) he's gotten us into. This suggests to me either a man who realizes he is totally into shit way too big and intricate for him to handle so he zones out and reverts to default persona or the mischief of a toddler who's had to be "quiet" and "good" for far too long and can no longer contain himself. Childish frivolity and Dennis the Menace antics, from the supposed leader of the free world.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if it's nothing more than George slipping through or defying the constraints that have heretofore kept him in better check. Is this the real GWB we're finally seeing, having felt his oats enough to climb out of the playpen and wriggle out of the restraining harness? The more I think about, the more perfect the sense of it becomes.

GHWB was a transplanted Texas Yankee Oil Man. George I made his money in...Oil. George I made friends with...Oil Men. George I was propelled into public office by the money of the...Oil Men. George I has two sons. George II is the elder and better known of the two. I can almost see George I conferencing with his cronies and handlers over whiskey and Cuban cigars at the old country club back in those heady days:

[in thick southern drawl] "Well, George...how're we gonna get this thing done? You've got them two boys, you know. Damn smart of you and Barb, I've got to say. What do you think the prospects are there?"

[insert Kennebunkport nasal twang here] "I don't know. The obvious choice would be George, but he's something of a live wire. Jeb is much more sober and stable but Georgie is the oldest and who knows what kind of hissy-fit he'll throw if we push Jeb ahead of him."

"Yeah, you and Barb really could have tried a little harder on that one, George."

::sigh:: "Yes, don't we know it now. But it's a little too late. We all have our crosses to bear and Georgie is ours."

"Anyway, our friend, Karl Rove..."

"Not a Nazi or Jew, is he?"

"No, no! Karl's a good born-again Christian boy like us."

"What kind of Christian."

"Never mind. It's not important. He's a good Republican boy, nephew of a friend of Mildred's. You'll like him. Straightforward and ambitious. Hard worker. Anyway, I think we should hook Georgie up with Karl. They have a lot in common and I think Karl could be a very good influence for George. Direct him and help him grow up a little. It couldn't hurt, George. Think about it, will ya?"

"Okay, we'll give Karl Road a try. I'm not promising anything from Georgie. He's so raw and reckless. I don't know how he's going to take to a refining process."

"Well, he knows which 'refineries' butter the bread he eats each night. He'd better keep that in mind and listen to Karl. And it's "Rove," like in "Land ROVEr."

"Oh, sorry. Gotcha. So Karl's gonna take Georgie in hand and make a president out of him?"

"If it's the last thing he ever does, George. He's loyal to The Cau$e."

Well, God bless him if he can knock any sense into him. Lord know, Barbs and I tried. So, it's heads so it's Georgie, I suppose. Let's get Karl down to meet Georgie and see what he thinks."

"Done."

Obviously, I have a fertile imagination. It's very possible no such conversation ever took place. But it does seem very convenient that George I is an oil man with wealthy oil man friends and family. And what do oil men love most of all? Money. Profits. Especially windfall profits with no windfall profits tax.

The way to make money was to take over the country. Although George I did not apparently have his son's taste for ideology, he did have a taste for the green. So, Karl goes to Texas and works his seeming miracle, George I coducts a half-hearted coup in Iraq, leaving the door wide open for future intervention, Republican minds everywhere go into deep planning sessions about the overthrow.

Newt is elected and becomes Speaker of the House and The Contract on America is born. Long range planning is beginning to bear fruit. The ideologues can push their agenda (no, it isn't just us gay folks who have an agenda) of pared-down constitutional rights, insipid intrusion of religion (read: fundamentalist Christianity) into every corner of government and every issue affecting our lives and dividends in the form of money, money, money (yes, cold, hard cash) for the "investors."

In the meantime, Georgie is supposedly being taught to toe the party line and behave himself. Failure as a businessman, failure as a governor. He's the perfect man to assume the Presidency of the United States of America. But, of course.

And what has been happening since then? If you're reading this, I probably don't have to drag out the whole list for you. First and foremost, though, is always the almighty dollar lining the pockets of all the principals in the administration and their "supporters," The Oil Men.

Let's only obey the laws we want to. Let's redraw Congressional districts to give us the most powerful, ideological Congress in history. Let's push this social agenda Karl and his friends seem so fond of, born-again Christianity, it's called. Prayer back in schools, school vouchers so our children can be taught the way we want them to be. Tax cuts for the richest. Drive down the poor with program cuts and pretend our "faith-based" partners will pick up the slack, though really they'll be lining their pockets along with the rest of us. Remove that pesky middle-class. You've got to be either very rich or very poor to have any place in our world.

And the capper? Grab all the oil you can. Because (and this is the absolute truth) he who controls the oil controls the world. And that's simply got to be us.

But what could be better than just making a quick grab for the brass ring? Do your damndest to make sure oil prices wise, profits rise, oil's power rises. How better to do that than to foster unrest and turmoil in the lands where the oil id depositied. (It should all have been left in the USA in the first place!) Drive oil to over $100 a barrel. Never seen that yet? Do you really think we won't? I think I will in my lifetime. Let us rake it in then, generate needless fear in the minds of the populace, create political situations abroad that also maximize the fear of the American public and demand response. The right kind of response. The response that can only be spelled W-A-R. Then we sit back and not only rake in the profits but secure our place at the top of the oil well, turning black all over from the lucrative slime.

No, I think GWB was planted. I now believe he is nothing more than the stooge he has shown himself to be in recent months and that he's puppeted very well at the hands of masters. The Buffoon President. The boorish oaf. Just what the doctor ordered...for The Oil Men.

I'm not quite sure if I'm done with my little rant here. I should probably break it into two posts and might revise it or split it in the morning. But it's nearly 3:30 now and I have to work tomorrow. If anyone reads this overnight, come back later on Thursday or friday morning in case it's morphed.

Not. Even. Spellchecking.

::yawn::

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